


Strange Bedfellows

by inabathrobe



Category: DCU, Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-24
Updated: 2010-06-24
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:18:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inabathrobe/pseuds/inabathrobe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Adrian wants is for Clark to stay until they get the check.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Bedfellows

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [Sophie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sophie), who said to show things, so I did.

Whenever they have lunch, Adrian feels as though Clark is imagining him naked. He has a sense of being looked through as though Clark Kent can see his very soul.

As though he knows what Adrian has done.

Adrian can't imagine how that's possible. Four people know why fifteen million people died, and one of them hasn't been seen in five years. He can't shake the feeling, though. Maybe, it's the brave new world that still needs nudges in the right direction from Adrian. Maybe, it's the repeal of the Keene Act in the wake of the Manhattan attacks. Maybe, it's the masked heroes on the streets as he sips wine at a posh restaurant and smiles as the young, baby-faced man in front of him. Maybe, it's the way Clark's eyes flicker from Adrian to the dark street outside. A few times, in the middle of dinner, Clark claims he has to run off to work. A reporter is always on call to document the next disaster. Adrian makes a face, but what is he going to say? Not everyone can work for himself. He finishes dinner alone.

The fifth time it happens, Adrian decides to follow him. It isn't a good idea. Clark slips into a phone booth. Adrian thinks he is making a call to see why his beeper went off. Clark never comes out.

Superman does, though.

Adrian can't help himself: he follows after, eventually forced to take a taxi to keep up. He stops in a dark suburban neighborhood to watch as Superman catches a medical helicopter before it plummets to the ground below. He carries it to a nearby hospital.

Suddenly, Adrian begins to rethink his plans to end things with his dull, bookish, excessively all-American boyfriend.

He has to catch Clark in the act, so for the first time in nearly fifteen years, Adrian will be Ozymandias in public. The suit is a little loose on him now, but the diadem fits well enough. It gleams on his brow in the moonlight as though nothing has changed since Ozymandias last haunted the streets of New York City. Once he has wriggled into the suit, he feels as though, perhaps, nothing has.

Ozymandias cannot fly, however, so this may prove more difficult than he has anticipated. He stalks through the city, hoping that enough crime is abroad that Superman will make an appearance. Before Adrian can find Superman, a group of muggers find Adrian. They call him a fairy, a fag, a queer, all manner of things, and he breaks two noses and one arm with an uncharacteristic fury. They have forgotten Ozymandias. Well, he isn't going to let them.

These are the little things that nag at Adrian's mind when he lies sleepless alone in the darkness: the men lurking in dark alleys, the stolen wallets of tourists, the black eyes on wives' faces, the epithets shouting in hallways and alleyways and homes. Adrian set out to create a perfect world for everyone, for Clark, for all the baby-faced men in New York who can't tell their bosses what their plans for Friday night are because of whom they're with. Adrian Veidt does not fail. He certainly doesn't lose, especially not to this particular enemy. He has known for some time that he would need to raise the stakes.

He walks through the streets of the financial district, emptied of the businessmen who daily fill it. Adrian is going to have to create some crime if things carry on this way. He is half afraid that Nite Owl and Silk Spectre (successful crime-fighting duo and somewhat less successfully married couple) will make an appearance if he lingers too long.

He's so completely caught up in them for a moment that he doesn't hear the car coming. In fact, he doesn't realize that it's going to hit him until it's far too late, and he is calculating his chances of surviving as he slips in the wet autumn leaves and wonders if it was worth it.

He is flying.

At first, he thinks the lightness is him leaving his corporeal being (how odd that he should have a soul after all), but as he looks down, he sees the car speeding on into the night, no crumpled body left in the street below.

"Hold on," a warm voice says in his ear, and Adrian wraps his arms around his unexpected savior's neck. Adrian didn't have to look for Superman; Superman was looking for him. He smoothes the cowlick on Clark's forehead as they hover over the buildings of New York City.

The next morning, every single daily paper in New York City and most of the dailies in other cities as well (and all the gossip rags for weeks after) run a photo of Superman kissing Ozymandias above the fold. Adrian, sitting up in bed with a breakfast tray, smiles smugly. Sales of Hero, the newest Veidt scent line, will soar. No one is going to forget Ozymandias now.

"We made headlines," he tells Clark who is still half asleep next to him and shows him the enormous SUPERMAN GETS COSY WITH CORPORATE INTERESTS on the front of the New York Times when he cracks an eye open.

"Oh dear," he mumbles. "I think they've caught on. Sorry, Adrian. Were you trying to keep it a secret?"

Adrian pets Clark's hair and tells him that it doesn't matter: he can deal with the media. He mentally calculates how much money it will require from Veidt Enterprises to fund lobbyists to not only convince Congress to pass laws protecting against discrimination based on sexual orientation but also make them think it was their idea. He guesses a few hundred million (to be safe) and the testimony of Superman should do it. Adrian's new world requires equality for everyone, even himself, and he's been looking for this kind of opportunity for years. He sips his coffee and begins to read the article aloud to Clark.


End file.
